When salmon, salamanders or other aquatic animals poop or shed skin cells, they leave behind traces of their DNA in the water, like clues left behind at a crime scene.
It's this evidence that Kit Paulsen is seeking as she wades into an urban creek east...

Climate change is increasing the risk of severe drought in California by causing warm periods and dry periods to overlap more often, according to a new study.
Rising temperatures resulting from increased greenhouse gas emissions mean warm and dry...

The conflict that has torn Syria apart can be traced, in part, to a record drought worsened by global warming, a new study says.
In what scientists say is one of the most detailed and strongest connections between violence and human-caused climate...

A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit by the timber industry seeking to strip Endangered Species Act protection from a threatened seabird that nests in old-growth forests.
Environmentalists say the ruling Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals in...

A slick new documentary on China's environmental woes has racked up more than 175 million online views in two days, underscoring growing concern in the country over the impact of air, water and soil pollution.
Hosted by former state television reporter Chai Jing, "Under the Dome" offers a well-produced look at the cost to the environment of 30 years of breakneck economic development.
Chai discusses the issues before a studio audience while standing in front of a screen showing videos of polluting...

SAN JOSE, Calif. Human-caused climate change is increasing drought risk in California boosting the odds that the current crisis will become a fixture of the future, according to a major report Stanford scientists released Monday.
The new study looked at data both backward and forward in time to understand the influence of greenhouse gases on California's past, present and future.
"What has happened in California has been a clear warming trend over the historical record ... that probably would not have...

As you may have heard, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who astonishingly enough is chairman of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, brought a snowball to the floor of the U.S. Senate last week to debunk "all this hysteria about global warming."
He stated, "In case we have forgotten, because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair — you know what this is? — it’s a snowball. Just from outside here. So it’s very very cold out....

Environmental Science Photos

Albany Democrat- Herald, March 2, on the clean-fuels program
The Legislature has one more chance to kill the state's clean-fuels program, but the smart money says the House will pass the measure this week and move it to Gov. Kate Brown, who's expected to sign it.
The clean-fuels program has been under a cloud since the resignation of Gov. John Kitzhaber on ethics charges that involved his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes. Hayes played some role in promoting the clean-fuels program, although, to be fair, it's not...

A butterfly being considered for federal protection is emblematic of the plight that pollinating insects face in part because farmers, enticed by ethanol mandates, are growing more herbicide-resistant crops, which has stripped millions of acres of crucial plant habitat.
Herbicide makers say they're committed to helping the black-and-orange insects, whose numbers have plummeted by more than 90 percent in the past two decades. And environmentalists seeking protection for monarchs under the Endangered...

It's been dubbed both a "pause" and a "faux pause," and it's ignited debate among climate scientists and their critics.
After a period of rapid global warming throughout most of the 20th century, the pace of global temperature rise has slowed greatly over the last 10 to 15 years.
This unexpected slowdown has raised questions about the accuracy of climate change forecasts, and sent scientists searching for an explanation.
In a paper published Thursday in the journal Science, climate researchers argue...